Ungvár: Striking from Hiding (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns in and around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Ungvár is a city in the Ukraine with about 110,000 inhabitants, 8000 of whom are Hungarian. In historical times, this area used to be a part of Hungary. Techincally, the legend itself is tied to the village of Komoró nearby, on the Hungarian side of the border, and Ungvár is only mentioned in passing, but I needed a place for U, so here we go.

First, you need to familiarize yourselves with the Hungarian term guta. It is an old name for an illness-demon, one that can strike people suddenly and cause a stroke, apoplexy, or a heat stroke. Today, we still say "megüti a guta" (the guta will strike them) when someone is about to have a great shock or sudden anger.

Later on, legends began to develop to explain the forgotten origin of the term.

Legend claims that there used to be a famous robber in the area of Ungvár, by the name of Guta Jakab. He was a master of the slingshot, and he could strike a target from a great distance with precision. He used to hide in the bushes and hedges outside a village and attack unsuspecting travelers - striking them like a sudden act of God. The legend claims this is where the common term "lapos guta" (flat guta) or "lapul mint guta" (lying low like the guta) came from: from the bandit lying low in the bushes, throwing flat stones with a slingshot.

Sources claim he was eventually captured, and executed in 1393 in Ungvár for his crimes (they hanged him by his ribs)

(I don't know about you, but I find it fascinating when legends develop to explain the origins of other, older, forgotten legends)

(Sources here and here)

Image from here

Telegd: Password for Hidden Treasure (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns in and around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Telegd, or Mezőtelegd is a municipality in Bihar county, Romania, with about 3500 inhabitants. In historic times, this area used to be a part of Hungary.

Here is a short yet fun story from this town:

There was once an old woman in Mezőtelegd who was extremely wealthy, but also extremely stingy. She had one child, a son, but she never gave a penny to him either. When she grew old and frail, her son and his wife took care of her day and night. And yet, the old woman did not want them to inherit any of her wealth.

To hide the gold she had, she sneaked out of the house one night into the garden. She buried the gold deep underground, covered it up, then bumped her buttocks on the ground nine times, saying:

"May the earth hide my treasure, may no one be able to retrieve it, until I bump my buttocks on it nine times again!"

It just so happened that her daughter-in-law secretly saw and heard all of this.

Soon after the old woman died. She refused to tell her son where the gold was buried. The man was distressed. Now his mother was dead, and she had taken her wealth with her.

"Too bad we will never be able to uncover that gold!" his wife sighed. She told him what she had witnessed. Her husband's face lit up.

"Nine times, you said?" 

With that, he picked his mother out of the coffin, went to the garden, and bumped her buttocks nine times on the ground. Lo and behold, the gold came to the surface.

(I feel like there should be a moral here about secure passwords...)

(Collected in 1984 from Fazekas Sándorné Keresztes Rozália. Source: this book)

Sokorópátka: How to Eat a Pig (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

This story comes from the actual oral tradition: growing up, I heard many tales from my grandfather that all featured a semi-mythical character named Sokorópátkai Szabó István. Only later on did I find out that he was a real historical person.

Sokorópátkai Szabó István was a politician at the beginning of the 20th century. He represented Sokorópátka is the parlament, and was a minister responsible for agrarian and smallholder issues. Sokorópátka is a municipality in Győr-Moson-Sopron county, northwestern Hungary, with about 1100 inhabitants.

My grandfather's tales about Sokorópátkai Szabó István, inherited through local folklore, were a source of endless merriment for my family. He usually came across in them as a bumbling, provincial, self-important man who made all kinds of funny breaches of etiquette. In the story we loved the most about him, however, he ends up being a trickster.

Here it goes:

Sokorópátkai Szabó István considered himself a very important man. He used to take the train to Budapest to attend parlament meetings. He had himself driven by carriage to the train station in Győr, and on the way home the carriage waited for him in the same place. Now, SSzI was a large man, almost 200 kilograms, and he always came home hungry. On the way back home he used to stop in the village of Ménfő, at the tavern of Józsa Mihály (my grandmother's uncle) to have dinner. His usual dinner consisted of five liters of pejsli (pork lung).

It happened one winter, on the night before the day of St. Barbara (Borbála) that the Budapest train was late. The coach driver was half frozen by the time SSzI arrived. The lord was extremely hungry, and gave the order to drive to the tavern despite the late hour. Soon, he was banging on the door, demanding dinner.

The tavern keeper, half asleep, opened up. He told the lord that there was no food prepared this late at night, and he should move on. However, SSzI did not take no for an answer. He demanded food loudly, until Józsa Mihály admitted that there was a roast pig in the oven, kept warm for St. Borbála's feast the next day - given that Borbála was his daughter's name, so they were going to celebrate her name day.

SSzI demanded the pig to be put on the table. The tavern keeper did not dare say no. However, he was furious. So he set the table, put a plate, a fork and a knife in front of the guest - and took another fork and knife for himself. Between them, there was the pig.

The tavern keeper gave a menacing look:

"My lord. Wherever you start on the pig, I shall start on you."

Sokorópátkai Szabó István looked at the pig. He was famished. He looked at Józsa Mihály. The man was not joking. He looked at the pig again. Where should he cut it? He did not want to suffer the same fate. He considered his options, salivating, struggling. Finally, he had an idea.

He put the knife down. He put the fork down. He turned the pig around. He stuck his finger into the pig's butt, scooped out a generous dollop of filling, and licked his finger clean.

"Alright, Mr. Józsa. You can start on me now!"

(According to my grandfather, Uncle Mihály was delighted to tell this story to people. Apparently, it made up for the loss of a pig.)

(Collected from my grandfather, Zalka Ottó, in 2019. May he rest in peace.)

Rónaszék: Playing Cards with Kobolds (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Rónaszék is a village of about 700 people in northern Romania, Máramaros county. In historical times this region used to be a part of Hungary. People have been mining salt in Rónaszék since the Bronze Age. The mines were finally shut down in the 1930s. Miners have always had a particularly rich and fascinating folklore which researchers have been collecting for decades.

Here is one of my favorite stories:

A carpenter was summoned to one of the mines because some planks had to be replaced. He descended into the mines with his young son. As they took a light into one of the abandoned corridors, they saw a man in a fur coat. The carpenter warned the stranger that the walkway was unstable, but he just waved, motioning at the boy to be sent away. The carpenter sent the boy to watch the other miners cutting salt. The boy was so fascinated by the adventure that he only remembered to return to his dad at the end of the day.

When he returned, he found his father playing cards with the stranger. He told them the mine was about to close, so his father went back to the surface with him... but the stranger disappeared in the opposite direction. At home, the carpenter revealed that he had won a lot of money on cards. The stranger had been a mine spirit who invited him to play. The carpenter said he only had one coin in his pockets, but the spirit insisted on playing anyway... and, game after game, he let the carpenter win.

(Mining spirits can feature into legends as benevolent, mischievous, or downright dangerous creatures. In this case, the carpenter got lucky.)

(The story was told as a memory by the carpenter's son later in his life. Source here)

Image from here

The Queen's Buttocks (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

There is no Q in the Hungarian alphabet, therefore there was no town name I could find. But I did find a legend that features a queen. So here we go.

THIS POST CONTAINS AN ADULT JOKE

This story has actually been collected from multiple villages in and around Hungary, including Fúlókércs, Sajórecske, and Ada.

Here it is:

One day, Queen Maria Theresa (Habsburg empress and queen of Hungary 1745-1765) was walking in her palace gardens when a soldier, who did not recognise the lady, passed by behind her and decided to slap her buttocks hard. As the queen turned around, the soldier was horrified to discover he had assaulted Maria Theresa herself. Fearing for his life, he blurted out:

"Your majesty, if your heart is as hard as your buttocks, I am a dead man!"

Amused, the queen looked him over and replied:

"Well, if your **** is as firm as your hand, I might keep you."

(Story referenced in the Catalog of Hungarian Historical Legends)

Note: There are several folk legends about Maria Theresa and her appetite in men. A lot of these were told to make fun of a powerful woman. But there are also many folk legends about Maria Theresa being a just and wise queen who took care of people, and appreciated a clever joke.

(Not that slapping a woman's butt has ever been okay)

Pozsony: The Molting Angels (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Okay so Pozsony is technically the Hungarian name for Bratislava, which is not a small town. But the story itself was collected in Győr, which is my hometown in northwestern Hungary (of about 130,000 people). And the story is too funny not to include.

The story concerns the seminary in Pozsony, probably referring to the Emericanum which functioned as a training school for priests from the 17th century all the way to 1913. The story itself was recorded in the 1820s.

Here's the legend:

It is said that Joseph II (Habsburg emperor 1765-1790) once visited the seminary in Pozsony, and lingered for a while in front of a painting depicting Jacob's ladder. He watched the painted angels ascending and descending the ladder between Heaven and Earth, then turned to the esteemed theologian standing by:

"Why are the angels taking the ladder? Can't they just fly?"

The theologian managed to come up with a quick answer on the spot:

"Your majesty, the angels are molting at the moment. That's why they can't fly."

(Story referenced in the Catalog of Hungarian Historical Legends)

Oláhfalu: The Crayfish as Tailor (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Oláhfalu is actually the former/colloquial name of the town of Szentegyháza in Transylvania, with a population about 6,300 (mostly Hungarian-speaking). There is a surprising number of funny anecdotes and joking folklore about the silly things people did in this town - most of which are universal legend types tailored to the locality.

Here is one of them:

The people of Oláhfalu once caught a crayfish in a stream. They weren't sure what it was, so they convened, and decided that it must be a tailor, since it had two pairs of scissors (pincers). Now that they had their own tailor, they placed the crayfish on a length of cloth to work. Wherever the wet crayfish crawled, leaving a trail, they kept cutting after it, expecting a pattern. In the end, with the animal meandering all over the place, the length of cloth was ruined.

The people of the town convened again, and decided the tailor should be punished for deceiving them. They didn't want to commit murder, so in the end, they thought it was best to drown the criminal - and tossed the crayfish into the river.

(Collected by Duka János in the middle of the 20th century)

Fun fact: This story type exists about various villages all over Hungary and Transylvania. There are also countless similar stories where the inhabitants of a village don't recognise an everyday object. My own grandfather used to tell a story about the neighboring village were people tried to beat a muff to death, thinking it was an animal.